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NBA's trip to China all about business
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-19 10:13
Seven-foot-six Chinese star Yao Ming's assessment of his first trip home with
his NBA team was on the money.
``I'm here on business,'' the affable Yao said.
Houston Rockets
team members pose for a photo in front of the portrait of late Chinese
communist leader Mao Zedong which hangs on Beijing's Tiananmen Gate
Saturday, Oct .16, 2004. The Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings play
their second game in Beijing Sunday after an earlier game in Shanghai
Thursday. The games are the first NBA games to be held in China.
[AP] |
The NBA's Sacramento Kings pose for a team photo in front of
the portrait of China's late communist leader Mao Zedong which hangs on
Tiananmen Gate in Beijing Saturday, Oct. 16, 2004.
[Reuters] |
Seeking big business in China are
the NBA and six corporate partners representing some of America's wealthiest
global companies - McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Eastman Kodak, Reebok and
Disney. The NBA's first foray into the People's Republic, called the China
Games, featured the Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings in two exhibition games
inside refurbished and sold-out arenas, in Shanghai, Yao's hometown, Thursday,
and Sunday in Beijing.
China's global ascendancy has the NBA and its partners fixated on a mountain
of marketing opportunities. A rising superpower and host of the 2008 Olympic
Games, China is part communist, part capitalist ``and'' home to 1.3 billion
people. Emerging from China's ``economic reform'' are savvy, young consumers
with a taste for Western-style living.
``That makes the marketing opportunity that much more robust,'' said Howard
Jacobs, president of Millsport, the sponsorship and sports consulting unit of
Dallas-based The Marketing Arm.
The 1987 All-Star game was the first NBA broadcast in China. NBA games now
reach 314 million Chinese households. NBA surveys show 75 percent of Chinese
males, aged 15 to 24, are NBA fans. Tickets to both exhibition games sold out in
a flash, said Andrew Messick, NBA senior vice president, international.
``We try to get closer to our fans and build our fan base and make our fans
happy,'' Messick said. ``That can be expressed in playing basketball games in
Shanghai and Beijing or by having good broadcast relationships so that people
can watch (NBA games) on television. Or, it could be having the abilities for a
basketball fan to be able to buy a Yao Ming replica jersey. There is a
commercial interest which is interesting for us. But, also, it's part of our
stewardship of the NBA business and the NBA brand.''
The more than 600 McDonald's stores in China celebrated the NBA's arrival
with special combo meals. Disney promoted Hong Kong Disneyland. Reebok unveiled
the first Yao signature shoe, available at Reebok's first free-standing retail
store in Beijing. Players from the Rockets and Kings appeared on cans and
bottles of Coke.
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